Bob Marley: One Love

by Philip Price

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch & James Norton
Rated: PG-13 (marijuana use & smoking, some violence and brief strong language)
Runtime: 1 hour & 47 minutes

​While it would be easy to say that, if nothing else, “Bob Marley: One Love” works as an introduction to Marley, his music and the context from which it came for young or new fans even that faint praise isn’t really true.

We are dropped into 1976 (after no less than four text cards) as Marley’s nation of Jamaica is rampant with political upheaval. The People’s National Party and the Jamaican Labour Party fight for control of the country, but neither of these opposing sides is given distinctions by the film’s screenplay which comes from no less than four screenwriters including director Renaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard”) and Terence Winter (“The Wolf of Wall Street”).

The point, of course, is that Marley’s mission was to bring these opposing political leaders together, but for audience members uninitiated in ‘70s Jamaican politics (like myself) there is very little indication of what the bullet point positions of these parties even were and worse, there are no indications as to where Marley himself fell. We understand Marley desires peace, we understand he is devout in his Rastafari faith, but there is no depth to these beliefs or desires. Further, one can feel the film skirting the penetration and profundity such insights might provide around its titular subject.

The music is good, obviously, and is frankly enough to keep the Wikipedia-level story afloat if not consistently engaging, but it’s depressing that an artist whose album – the making of which is chronicled in the film - was named the best album of the 20th century by TIME magazine in 1999 doesn’t get a biopic that at least feels in tune with what that artist stood for, if not also genuinely trying to shape who he was.

How this film manages to make even Lashana Lynch seem dull is beyond me and signals just how weak so many other areas of the film have to be to allow for this travesty.